18. Forms, Forms and More Forms

I'm interested to know how everyone is feeling about the forms we've been using lately.

We've covered different types of stanzas, sonnets, syllabics, sestinas, pantoums, ghazals, anaphora (technique, but whatever). I'm guessing I'm not the only one that is writing in forms you never thought you would...and sometimes actually half-not-hating the result!

Do you find that forms help or impede your writing abilities? Do they "expand your horizons"...or do they feel constricting?

I think I can understand both sides. On the one hand, sometimes there is a poem I really want to write, but I know it won't work in the form I've been assigned. In this case, my thought process is "Well, I need to finish this one for school, so that one can wait" and it gets pushed aside, the idea scribbled into a notebook, and hopefully will be pulled back out one day, but there's not guarantee.

On the other hand, however, I can see why it's beneficial. Aren't we creating images we never thought we would--particularly with recent lessons? I felt that way with the syllabic; I ended up writing lines I didn't anticipate producing because they had to be short and to the point.

Opinions?

17. Ghazals, Pt. 2.

I've already done an entry on Ghazals, but after having read some, and more importantly heard one--I might need to revise my previous "It could be cool" idea.

I love the concept behind it, but there are some things that just become too distracting in poetry, and I think that constant repetition is one of them. In the example I heard read aloud, the word was "erosion"...there are only so many times you can hear that before it gets a little redundent. Part of it is I have a lot more trouble comprehending poetry when I don't have a copy of it in front of me, but sometimes it gets to a point where you start to think "Wow, when is this going to end?" The anaphora example with the horses was another one of those, like we talked about in class.

I just think it's important you keep your reader's attention (maybe that's obvious, but it's true), and though using the same word in new and interesting ways is possible, I haven't really found a Ghazal yet that I've enjoyed. They just become redundent.

Separation from companions is unwise
Treading the path without light is unwise
If the throne and scepter have been your prize
Descent from prince to pauper is unwise.
For Beloved, the you in you is disguise
To focus on the you in you is unwise.
If once to heavenly abundance you rise
Desperation and impotence is unwise.
Hear the thief’s greedy and fearful cries
Fraudulent deception too is unwise.
Able-body, chains & shackles unties
Idleness of such a body is unwise.
Your foothold gone, your soul freely flies
Wingless & featherless flight is unwise;
Given wings, reach only for Godly skies
Flying away from God’s Will is unwise.
To you, phoenix, demise is mere lies
Phoenix running from fire is unwise.

I can appreciate elements of this... the different situations set up before "unwise," the fact that the actual lines keep my attention...until I reach the end. Because I know what word is coming. I like line breaks because you go to the next line and see a word that you didn't expcet; this is the exact opposite of that. And then, with this one, there's so much rhyme! It's just a big example of "expected" for me.

We all have forms we don't like...I guess this one is mine.

16. Baby Pants

Baby Pants
by Misha Collins
The Columbia Poetry Review #21, 2008 Edition.

This morning I drive across town for a friend
To Justin’s house on a Saturday at 9.
His wife yells from under wet hair
Belt unbuckled
“Justin!”
He’s down in the office
And I sit—collapse on the new couch
Custom made, brown and squarer than a couch should be.
Justin’s baby produces baby pants for my inspection.
I’m impressed, he can find his own pants now.
Can’t put them on, but knows
They go
On his baby legs.
And there I am
With my friend’s family
On a weekend morning.
The mother holds an envelope
In her teeth
Hoists and struggles
To pant her boy.
I’m slouching and hot in my vest
My blue, down vest.
Thinking today was colder than it is.
Forgetting that fall in California
Is like summer back home.
Plastic diapers pack the thighs of tiny corduroys
The smell of Cheerios bloated and floating in milk
What have I missed?



This is a poem I just happen to really like (although if I had my way, I'd probably change some line breaks and wrestle it in to some stanzas). I don't know why, but I can relate to it, not in the baby-family sense, but in other ways...very grass-is-always-greener even when you can see the downfall of that otherside, ya know? It probably helps that I'm half-in love with the poet, too.